


Code Thirteen, Or, Five Times Sharon Was Called to Help Steve and One Time He Was Called to Help Her

by agentx13



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5 + 1, F/M, sharon carter month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:13:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28111455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentx13/pseuds/agentx13
Summary: When the rest of the Avengers don't want to deal with Steve anymore, they know just who to call.
Relationships: Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36
Collections: Sharon Carter Month





	Code Thirteen, Or, Five Times Sharon Was Called to Help Steve and One Time He Was Called to Help Her

**Author's Note:**

> Another Irene prompt!

Steve leaves the room. In his wake, Tony can best describe the air in the room as “sulking.” Not that he, himself, is sulking, of course. He is not. He never has. He never will. Some people may think he is, because he does a great impression of it when he’s slouched down in his chair and his arms are crossed and his expression is sulky, but his is not now and never will sulk.

The core Avengers don’t look at each other. Steve has a penchant for idealistic lectures, but this one had been particularly long-winded and barbed.

“I’m sure he’ll cheer up,” Thor offers. “Just upset the mission didn’t go as well as it could have.”

“He’s more concerned with PR than I am,” Tony gripes.

“His existence is more PR-driven,” Natasha reasons. “And he views the Avengers as an extension of himself, so anything that makes us look bad, he takes personally.”

“Not usually like this, though,” Barton argues. “I felt like I was being lectured by a nun.”

They lapse into silence again.

“How much you want to bet they broke up again,” Tony asks. As expected, there are no takers, and he sighs. “Okay, who’s going to-”

Natasha’s already anticipating him. “Not it.”

Everyone else repeats the phrase before Tony can even finish speaking.

He stares at them, betrayed. “Okay. Fine.” He picks up his phone. “Code Thirteen.”

* * *

Steve opens the door, but it’s clear he isn’t happy about it. She doesn’t look happy to be there, either. “Sharon.”

“Steve.”

Several seconds pass, and he moves to allow her into the apartment. Another second passes before she moves inside. “They shouldn’t have called you.”

She doesn’t deny that they called her. “They were worried about you.”

“They shouldn’t be.”

She regards him levelly, and he clamps his lips together. It hurts, on some level, that she isn’t here for him for his own sake, that she’s here because other people asked her to come check on him. “What else are they going to do, Steve? Whenever they try to tell you they’re concerned, you lecture them.”

“I don’t lecture them.”

She stares at him.

He holds up his hand. “It’s a one-sided conversation.”

Her eyes crinkle in amusement the slightest bit. If he didn’t know her so well, he wouldn’t see it. “That makes them want to punch you in the face.”

“Good thing I’ve got a hard face.”

“They’ve got a Hulk.”

“I’ve got a jawbone.”

She sighs. “Do you want to talk about it? With me? If not, we can find someone else. But you need to talk about it. Holding things in isn’t healthy.”

“I’m not holding anything in.”

“Except 90% of your body mass in bullshit.”

He half-glares at her, but she’s right. He hates it, but she’s right. They’d been so good together. What had gone wrong? “I miss us,” he admits. “I hate to think I did something wrong.”

She softens, but not entirely. She’s still calm, collected. She almost always is. “You didn’t hate it enough to stop.”

“What didn’t I stop?”

She watches him, then looks away. “That’s part of the problem, isn’t it. I had to spell it out so many times and you still don’t know.” She sighs. “Come on. Let’s go get coffee.”

“You talk like that, and then you ask me on a date?”

“It isn’t a date, Steve. It’s a friend trying to make sure you’re okay.”

“Hm.” His friends don’t invite him for coffee.

But then, he doesn’t really have many friends that he hangs out with.

“We’re friends,” she reminds him.

He doesn’t entirely believe her, but if things can’t be what they were, there are worse things to believe

* * *

Technically, the Avengers have no one to blame but themselves. They were among the people who had advised him to take up hobbies. The Avengers in particular had advised him to take up hobbies. So he’s taking up hobbies. Not painting or sketching like the old days. More like baking. Cooking. Woodworking.

He makes it three days in before he finds Sharon as his door. “I wasn’t even doing anything!”

“I was,” she says sardonically. “But they said you were upset about something.”

“They told me to get a hobby! I’m getting a hobby.” He waves a hand to show her his work and immediately regrets it. The place is a mess. He hadn’t realized how much sawdust woodworking could generate.

She pulls off her overcoat and sets it carefully on a chair nearby, avoiding the sawdust flakes on the cushion. “They just worry about you.”

“And you?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t worry about you, too. Friends worry about each other, you know.”

“Nobody ever calls me to check on you.” He doesn’t mean for it to come out as a whine, but he admits there’s something whiny about it.

“I don’t worry people like you do.” She crosses her arms. “So? What’s on your mind?”

“I wanted to learn how to carpen- how to carpent… Carpend?”

She gives him a disbelieving look. “You know Tony set you up with an entire cable package, right? You get channels no one else has even heard of.”

He shrugs. “It’s no fun watching that stuff alone.”

“Would it make it better if I stayed here with you to watch?”

He glances over at his work table. “I really am fine. I was working on a bookcase.”

She makes a face and grabs her overcoat. “Okay. Let’s go find a place for you to rent when you do this. There’s got to be some place you can do this without distressing the people around you. Or annoying them.”

He grabs his coat from the closet. “Is this what friends do?”

“I guess? It’s what we do. Isn’t that good enough?”

He considers. It isn’t, but he doesn’t want to say that. Not yet. Not when his friendship with her could easily disappear. “Yeah,” he says with a soft smile. “Yeah, it is.”

* * *

This time, she lets herself into his apartment. He doesn’t even realize it until her arms are around him, her cheek on his shoulder, and the sob he’d been trying to keep in breaks free. He knows what brought her in; they’d doubtless called her about his records, played too loud and certainly too long. The curtains are open to let in daylight, but it looks like the sun set hours ago.

Gently, she starts to rock him as he cries, sobs racking his body.

When he’s cried out, she smooths his hair. “Go take a shower,” she suggests. “Get in comfy pajamas. I’ll order a pizza. We don’t have to talk about anything if you don’t want to.”

“And if I want to?”

“Then I’m here to talk about it.”

He considers talking about it. The letter informing him of the funeral of the man he was supposed to visit next week. How close Steve had been to reconnecting someone he’d known only for the chance to be taken away.

But he can’t. Instead, he slides the letter over to her.

She reads it, and her lips press together. She can’t understand, not really. No one can. But she tries, and that will have to do.

“What if I want to stay here like this?” he asks after a moment. “With you. Is that okay?”

After a second, she shakes her head. “Let’s move to the couch.”

He looks at her curiously.

She must see what he’s thinking, because she shakes her head harder. “Not like that! Crouching here is just murder on my ass, that’s all.”

He grins wryly. “That’s not the answer I expected.”

She shrugs. “It’s the one you’re getting.” She studies him for a moment. “Take a shower. We’ll reconvene on the couch.”

By the time he comes out, there’s a stack of pizzas waiting, and she’s got old movies cued up. After he eats all but one of the pizzas – has to be a good host, after all – he doesn’t feel the need to be comforted so much. It’s enough to know that someone is willing to be here with him when he doesn’t want to be alone.

* * *

The next time, when he’s left his television on too loud and hasn’t answered anyone the Avengers’ texts or phone calls in a while, he opens the door just as she’s about to knock. “The fair’s in town,” he greets her. “Want to go?”

She stares at him, her fist still raised to knock. “Um.” She blinks. “What?”

He holds up a pair of tickets. “I got these. They were actually kind of given to me? As a favor? But who goes to the fair alone, right?”

She stares at the tickets. “Steve. Did you trick the others into calling me?”

“Maybe.” His smile is too smug to suggest innocence.

Very slowly, her hand lowers, and she grins. She shakes her head. There’s just a hint of a smile, though. “Fine, fine. You’re lucky I’m done with work.”

“I’d have waited until you were done with work. If I’d tricked them into calling you, I mean. Which I clearly did not do.” He grabs his coat – in truth, he’d had it at the ready, just out of her sight.

“Clearly,” she says, her voice wry. “Did you ask the others? They might have been interested in joining you.”

He flashes her a cockeyed grin. “I couldn’t think of anyone I wanted to go to a fair with who wasn’t you.”

She looks taken aback, but Steve doesn’t apologize. Instead, he shoves his hands in his pockets.

“I can’t wait for the test of strength,” he says, partly because she hasn’t said anything yet. “I’ll actually be able to rank this time. You know, after…” He nods to his arm muscles.

She laughs. “I think you might break it this time.”

He smiles. “How many stuffed animals will that get you?”

None, it turns out. It actually gets them both kicked out of the fair, but Sharon’s laughing so hard she’s crying, and that makes it all worth it.

* * *

He doesn’t do anything to bring her to him the next time. He isn’t making noise. He isn’t playing his records. He isn’t woodworking.

He isn’t doing anything. But that’s part of the problem. Or at least, he’d think that if he thought at all.

No, the fact that he isn’t doing _anything_ is the problem. He goes on missions and tries to hide his dour mood and then retreats to his apartment again. He can’t think of what else to do. Can’t think of anything he _wants_ to do. It just… all seems so pointless.

And then she’s there, sinking down beside him on the couch. Her arms go around him, and he breathes in the scent of citrus shampoo.

They don’t talk. She doesn’t push. They just sit and hold each other through the night.

In the morning, he stands and thanks her for coming over, reassures her that he’ll be fine.

“You’ll be full of shit,” she tells him. “Just like you’re full of shit now.”

He huffs a grin. That’s the thing about Sharon. She’d never put up with his crap. It was one of the reasons he’d been glad, back then, that they’d broken up. He hadn’t been able to see how much he needed her to do that. “I don’t have a choice. I’ll have to be fine.”

She gives him a droll look. And somewhat blearily, given that she’s stayed up all night and needs more sleep than he does. “Want me to help you find a therapist?”

“I don’t need that.”

“Says the man from the forties, where PTSD was rarely discussed because mental illness was seen as shameful and men had to bottle things up to their own detriment. And as such is ignoring the PTSD he very clearly has.”

Tough to argue with that.

“It isn’t healthy, Steve. For you or the people around you.”

He sighs and looks away, running his hand through his hair. “I don’t want to dump this on someone else.”

“They get paid for it, you know.”

His lips twitch. “I don’t know if they get paid _that_ much.”

She smiles up, a soft, easy-to-miss smile. “Probably not. Only one way to find out.”

He still doesn’t want to. “The therapist could be a target just for having me as a client.”

“Let me see what I can do?”

By the end of the week, he’s got a session set up.

It isn’t easy, but it could be worse. And maybe, just maybe, it helps a little.

* * *

He gets a text from Natasha. “Code Thirteen.”

He looks at it, turns his phone as if the difference in angle will help, and then calls her. “What’s ‘Code Thirteen?’”

“Sharon.”

He’s already on his feet and moving to the door. “What’s wrong? Where is she?”

“Last I checked? Her apartment.”

“What’s wrong?” He’s already on his motorcycle. He remembers her apartment. He’d been there before their breakup.

“You’re not the only one who can use someone to lean on from time to time, Rogers.”

Natasha hangs up on him, but Steve wouldn’t be able to hear her over the engine and wind in his ears anyway.

Sharon’s apartment building is quiet. The stairwell is quiet. The hallway is quiet.

Where the hell are the people he needs to punch?

He peeps through her peephole, but it’s designed not to let him see inside. She isn’t answering her phone. 

He can’t believe he forgot his shield. He knocks and moves aside.

After several seconds, the door opens, and he leans in.

“Steve?”

Her eyes are red. She’s wearing her coziest pajamas – and it doesn’t escape him that one of his old shirts is under the thick sweater.

“Natasha was worried,” he says, starting to worry himself. He moves closer, uncertain. In the past, she’s always been the one hugging him to comfort him. He’s never been the one to initiate before. But he tries, and that seems to be what she needs.

She melts against him, and he holds her tight. “It’s just been a little overwhelming,” she mutters into his jacket. “I just needed a night to mope.”

“It’s no fun moping alone.”

“I’m very good at moping alone.”

He lifts her chin. “Please tell me you haven’t been trying to comfort other people while needing other people to comfort you.”

She doesn’t answer, doesn’t even meets his eyes, but that’s all the answer he needs.

He sighs and pushes her a little more inside so he can close her door. “Go take a shower,” he tells her.

“Already did.”

“Then-” He looks over her shoulder. There’s a pizza box on the table, a black-and-white movie on the TV. Candles are lit. There’s a bottle of wine open beside a half-empty glass. “Um.” He frowns. What can he suggest that she hasn’t already done? “Bubble bath?”

She huffs a laugh, then gives an uncharacteristic giggle. She clamps a hand down on her mouth. “Sorry. Too much wine.”

She doesn’t drink too much wine. They both know that.

“Right.”

She lowers her hand. They’re looking at each other as if transfixed. “I’m sorry. She shouldn’t have made you think you had to come over.”

“I don’t mind. I thought you were in trouble. I wanted to come.”

She holds her hands out wide. “As you can see. Trouble free.”

He makes a face. “If you were, you wouldn’t have been crying earlier.” He pauses. “Would a back rub help? Foot rub?”

She groans and covers her face. “Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing. Please. You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“Sor- I- I just.” She shrugs helplessly. “I- Do you ever miss it? Us?”

“We’re friends,” he says cautiously.

“Before we were just friends.”

He tries to figure out if this is a trap. If it is, he doesn’t know how. “Yes,” he says slowly. “Being friends is nice, but it’s not the same.”

“It isn’t,” she agrees. “Do you- do you ever think about trying again?”

He moves a little closer, almost like he’s approaching a deer. Which is ridiculous. They’d dated in the past, and it had always been tenuous. Maybe they _were_ better off as friends. “We’ve never been able to make it work before, Sharon.”

“I know. It’s just- It’s not like there are fewer problems when we’re together, they just seem like they’re easier to-” She looks away and shakes her head, more at herself than at him. “I know.”

There’s a despondent note in her voice that he can’t stand, and he’s near enough to stroke her cheek. He fights to keep his hand where it is. They’re not together anymore.

Unless… “We’d have to work harder, I think.”

She looks at him.

“You’re always the one who’s communicating. Who’s caring. I’ll have to step up there.” He hesitates. “And you can be closed off sometimes. You don’t tell people things. You don’t tell _me_ things.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

She nods. “It isn’t easy. Talking about myself. Relying on people that way.” She hesitates, longer than he did. “What if you don’t like me when you get to know me better?”

“Try me.” He leans in, his lips inches from hers, but he doesn’t move closer.

“You’re on.” She closes the distance, and for the the first time in months, they’re kissing again. He grips her in his arms, feeling as if she could never be close enough, and he tries to pull her toward the couch but trips over her rug and ends up on his ass. 

She laughs on top of him.

“You just like it when I fall,” he gripes.

“It _is_ kind of funny,” she admits.

They catch each other’s eye and stare at each other, quieting.

“One more apology?” she asks.

He sighs and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Better be a good one.”

“I’m sorry this took so long.” And she kisses him again.

He grins against her lips. That’s an apology he can get behind.


End file.
